:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63703266/711pizzaslurpee_640.0.1543477716.0.jpg)
I ate a convenience store pizza this weekend. And I think I liked it.
Don’t judge. It was Sunday at 2:00 pm, my 57th hour on the ground at the South By Southwest convention in Austin, Texas. I was lost downtown on Lavaca Street, and every restaurant was packed, with lines out the door. In other words, typical South By.
So I’m not entirely ashamed to say I got excited when I saw a giant 7-Eleven food truck on West 6th Street, handing out free pizzas and Diet Coke Slurpees to hungry attendees.
It was one of many corporate gimmicks at the festival, which sees upward of 50,000 people flock to Austin every year. The woman working the truck said 7-Eleven had four such trucks set up around the downtown area, cranking out 7-Eleven-brand pizzas and giving them to people who tweeted at the company’s official handle, @7eleven, with their location at South By.
I have to say, I am not a proud man — especially after a weekend running mostly on Red Bulls and catnaps. But walking away with what amounted to a gas station meal was not my shining moment of the festival.
https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/statuses/442779762243563520
That said, the Diet Coke Slurpee was really good. And for something you’d buy from a 7-Eleven, the pizza actually wasn’t half bad. I had three slices before leaving the rest on top of a garbage can for someone else to discover.
The tastiest part? A personal Twitter shout-out from the brand itself.
https://twitter.com/7eleven/statuses/442780487958802432
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
